Dr. Google
Google announced this past summer that they are moving into health care.
From CNN:
Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.
The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google’s new service, which won’t be open to the general public.
Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that’s also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.
Good thing there is no way to compromise a Gmail account. Phew (in case you might have missed it, that was sarcasm). These problems may or may not still exist. Those links are more for demonstrating that there is a track record established. That notwithstanding, I am a Google fan. So, I’m hopeful that they can do this securely but, on the same token I’d rather that they didn’t have my health records. Not entirely comfortable with that idea to be honest. Third party services do not currently fall under HIPAA.
[tags]Google Health Records, Google Health, Google Data Security[/tags]
Posted by Dave Lewis
on February 21, 2008. Filed under Privacy,Web Security.
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4 Responses to Dr. Google
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Tom Scrace
February 21, 2008 at 11:42 am
If this were a mandatory government project to centralise all your personal information in one database then the outcry would be fully justified. In this case, though, it is a private company providing an entirely voluntary service. It is when non-submission to a database becomes a crime against the state, and not just a company, that we should object.
Dave Lewis
February 21, 2008 at 3:15 pm
@ Tom
Fair point. Thanks for the comment.
cheers,
Dave
Bernie Gleason
February 22, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I’d like to know more about the details of how Google Health will work, especially how would my records be united (what identifier?) if my medical records are not all store in a common repository, such as Cleveland Clinic?
Google APIs are mentioned — do we know anything about them?
Benjamin Wright
February 25, 2008 at 9:34 am
Maybe patients can use contract law to enhance the privacy of their health records. http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/02/contracts-for-patient-privacy.html